good morning, welcome to "this week." >> so help you god. >> so help me god. >> the president takes a stand. >> we are made for this moment, and we will seize it. >> how far will he push in his new term? >> the secretary of state takes on her critics. >> what difference at this point does it make? >> and tough words as republicans regroup. >> we've got to stop being the stupid party. plus, senators crossing the aisle to work on immigration reform. what's in their plan? we'll ask our headliners, arizona republican senator john mccain and new jersey democratic senator bob menendez. then our powerhouse roundtable takes on all the week's politics and is there really a controversy over this? ♪ and the home of the brave

>> you know who caught her, lance armstrong. yeah, he is such a stickler for the truth now. >> joining us, george will, democratic strategist donna brazile, republican congressman dave schweikert, new republic punisher and facebook co-founder chris hughes and the host of npr's "morning edition," steve inskeep. hello. great to have you with us. george is off this weekend. so much to get to this morning. including that controversy over the oscar-nominated film "zero dark thirty" and so-called intense interrogation. but first front and center this morning washington is set to tackle an immigration overhaul. the president is planning to speak about it on tuesday, and our two headlining senators are

working 0en a plan as well of the let's start with ranking of the armed services committee, john mccain. welcome, senator mccain. you have spent a great deal of time working on immigration issues. when do you think you can get this bipartisan plan out and how much can you tell us about what's in it? >> well, we're going to be announcing the principals that will be guiding our translation of it into legislation. we've still got a lot of hard work ahead. but i'm very pleased with the progress. frankly -- >> you're announcing this week. >> yeah, we'll be -- senator menendez and i and senator schumer, senator graham, senator durbin and some -- we are -- we've been working together for some weeks now. we'll be coming forward. it's not that much different from what we tried to do in 2007. martha, what's changed is honestly is that there is a new

i think appreciation on both sides of the aisle including maybe more importantly on the republican side of the aisle that we have to enact a comprehensive immigration reform bill. >> so this is comprehensive. it's not piecemeal. >> yeah, this piecemeal stuff, the way the senate works very briefly is that you bring up one section of it, someone has an amendment that brings up another part. >> we've seen a lot of that lately. but what about a pass to citizenship? >> that has to be also part of it but from my perspective also and i'm sure senator menendez understands as senator schumer and durbin do that my state, most of the drugs now coming across the mexican border into the united states comes through across the arizona senora border so border enforcement is very important. we have made progress on border enforcement. there's been significant improvements but still have a ways to go but i'm confident, guardedly optimistic, that this

time we can get it done. >> citizenship is obviously the most controversial aspect for some of your republican colleagues and you've gone back and forth. in 2005 you were for it. by 2010 you wanted border security first and, quote, certainly no amnesty, so you're solidly behind a pathway to citizenship. how do you convince some of those republicans who are not behind it. >> well, first of all, i've always been for border security. i mean, there are citizens in my state who do not live in a secure environment. we live in a pretty secure environment here in the senate, have guards and there's people every night in the part -- the southern part of my state that have drug traffickers and people going across, the guns. >> so how do you convince republicans about the path to citizenship? >> well, look, i'll give you a little straight talk. look at the last election. look at the last election. we are losing dramatically the hispanic vote, which we think should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that. second of all, this -- we can't

go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status. we cannot forever have children who were born here -- who were brought here by their parents when they were small children to live in the shadows, as well. so i think the time is right. by the way, we just acted to avert i nuclear option in the senate, believe it or not, i see some glimmer of bipartisanship out there. >> how about we've got president obama out this week also pushing a plan. >> yes. >> does that help, hurt? >> i think it helps. i think it's important that we all work together on this. i think it can be helpful and i look forward to sitting down. i'm sure we will -- the group of us who are working on this legislation with the president and the white house and our colleagues on the other side of the capitol. >> i want to move to benghazi. obviously the hearings this week. some very contentious part of those hearings. >> uh-huh. >> what were you really trying to accomplish in that? you knew a lot of the answers. all the senators knew a lot of the answers because of the

accountability review board. so what were you looking for there. >> first of all, we don't know a lot of the answers. we don't know why the president and the secretary of state ignored the warnings. why didn't the secretary of state who said she was, quote, clear-eyed about it, not see the cable that came on august 15th that said, the consulate cannot stand or withstand an attack on the consulate. why wasn't the department of defense assets there? seven hours that went on. >> some of those questions were answered -- >> what's that? >> some of the questions have come out of pentagon and been answered about why it took so long. >> not satisfactory. how on september 11th, of all days, with all these warnings didn't we have assets there for seven hours to -- there's so many questions that -- >> so this is not over in your mind at all, not over. >> what did the president do during this period of time? there's two movies been made about getting bin laden with every ticktock of heavy minute.

we still don't know what the president was doing but more importantly, martha, more importantly than that very quickly is what's happening all over north africa? what's happening in the middle east? things are deteriorating in a rapid fashion and it's because of a lack of american leadership. >> deteriorating certainly in north africa, a lot of presidents of al qaeda -- >> iraq, syria. >> let's go to syria and talk about syria. i actually spoke to secretary of defense leon panetta last week about syria and he had some pretty alarming things to say. he basically said those shells that the u.s. knew they were loading, artillery theys are still sitting there loaded with chemical weapons. take a listen to this. >> well, they'd have to obviously decide whether they're going to put them on planes or try to load them into artillery, you know, weapons of one kind or another. there are different ways to deploy this stuff. >> talking about minutes, hours? >> i think it -- you know, it's the kind of thing that would

till take a matter of hours to be able to do it. >> that -- the red line for the obama administration. >> yeah. >> but you have really backed arming the rebels and a no-fly zone. >> yes, the rebels are -- i mean, bashar assad is being supplied by the russians and the iranians with iranian revolutionary guard on the ground with weapons. everything that the opponents of intervening in syria said would happen if we did have now happened because we haven't. the president said it's a red line, the use of chemical weapons. bashar uses that as a green light for everything less than that. >> how do you know who the ribls are? how do you know -- >> i met them. >> you met them all. >> no, but i've certainly met enough to know who they are, but the sad news is that as every day goes by, more and more jihadists gain more influence and there's more and more of their presence which is going to make the post-bashar assad situation even more and more complicated. the jihadists are pouring in

there, so, of course, i know who they are. >> quickly, chuck hagel, does he have your backing now? you met with him this week. >> no, but i want to see what happens in the hearing and i think it would be important to make a judgment after that. >> are you closer than you were before? you had specific concerns. did he answer those concerns? >> not really. we had a very, i think a good conversation. we've been friends for many years. so we'll see what happens in the hearings here. >> big news this week on lifting the ban for women in combat. >> uh-huh. >> supporting that or -- >> no, no, i support it. i think women are obviously are prepared to serve side by side with men in combat. i just want to emphasize, though, there should be the same physical and mental standards for anyone to perform certain roles and functions in the military. >> and they say there will be. how about selective service? women? >> i was just going to say i think we ought to grapple with that one. maybe -- maybe we'll draft you

first, martha. >> okay. i'll volunteer before that. thank you so much for joining us, senator mccain. and we turn now to new jersey democratic senator robert menendez who presided over the hearings for secretary of state nominee john kerry and should kerry be confirmed is set to become chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, welcome, senator menendez. thank you for joining us. what's your reaction to what senator john mccain said about this? obviously you've been working with him and know -- in terms of immigration. i don't think you've been working together on some of that other stuff so much. >> i think john said it well. i am cautiously optimistic and as someone who spent years between the house and the senate, trying to get comprehensive immigration reform i'm cautiously optimistic. i see the right spirit. i see things that were once off the table for agreement and discussion being on the table with a serious pathway forward.

of course, it will have the enhancement of the border security. we've done already a lot with more customs agents. we have more border patrol. more physical impediment than any time in history but using greater technology, focusing our resources go a better way is something that we'll achieve. looking at making sure employers don't hire individuals who are undocumented, thinking about future flows and how we take care of the american economy by that. but also very clearly having a pathway to earned legalization is an essential element and i think that we are largely moving in that direction as an agreement. >> what do you want? senator mccain said it's helpful that president obama is out on the road. what do you want to hear from him? how committed is he to getting this done? he also wants gun control. >> right. well, i was at the white house on friday with the congressional hispanic caucus leadership. and the president made it very clear in that discussion that

this was a top legislative priority for him in this session of the congress. and that he expects to work with all of us in an effort to achieve the goal and he's fully committed to it and i think that's why this week the clock by the speech he's going to make out in las vegas. >> that pathway to citizen xi. does ha have to be in there. >> absolutely. latino voters in -- first of all, americans support it in poll after poll. secondly, latino voters expect it. thirdly, democrats want it and fourth republicans need it. >> shouldn't the president have invited some republicans to that meeting in the white house? >> well, it was the congressional hispanic caucus. >> i know but isn't there a way to find some republicans he could invite into the white house? i know there's -- >> in his first term he invited a very large cross section of democrats and republicans, and i think he understands the unique

role that the congressional hispanic caucus plays in the question of immigration reform. and that's why he wanted to hear from that leadership. but i am sure that those bipartisan meetings will take place and most importantly, i am really pleased by the nature of the bipartisan meetings that we are having with a group of six senators, three democrat, three republicans and i understand a similar process is taking place in the house. that's real movement forward. if you think about it, martha, at one time pathway to earned legalization was off the table. we were talking about sending people back as touchbacks if they had any opportunity, that's not really being discussed. we're making a very significant progress. >> let me move also on to benghazi. do you think this is over? john mccain clearly does not think this issue is pout it bed. >> well, look, i think -- i don't know how much more can be said about the realities of what happened in benghazi. we have the administrative review board. they made it very clear. secretary clinton -- >> then what were you trying to get at? >> well, first of all, --

>> did you make mistake. >> pie republican colleagues insisted on having that hearing before we could move on to senator kerry's nomination. and i thought it was important to hear from the secretary to close the chapter. where, in fact, she is moving forward as she said on those 29 recommendations by the administrative review board, how do we change the lines of authority within the state department so that it's very clear who is responsible for embassy security, how do we change -- >> which they said they've implemented most of them -- >> absolutely and that's very important so that in fact there are very clear lines of division. also, how do we make sure, in fact, we look at intelligence in a different context. doesn't have to be a specific threat. but we look at the environment and any place in the world in which our foreign services are operating. >> i wanted to move on to chuck hagel, as well and his nomination. do you support chuck hagel? is he the right man to be defense secretary? >> i have a meeting with senator hagel this week. i look forward to asking him a series of questions about israel, about iran as the major

sponsor of the iran sanctions in the senate. i am concerned about some of the comments he has made about sanctions in the past. i think it's our peaceful diplomacy tool to get the iranians to ensure we have no nuclear weapons which we cannot accept from iran and i support the president's view that it's not -- >> you expect he will be confirmed? >> we'll see. i think that there's been enough senators who have said they would support him, but we'll see. of course, there's the hearings. that always, you know, gives us insight and look forward to his personal answers to a series of my questions. >> i want to go in the end here just something very quickly happening in your home state between newark mayor cory booker and 89-year-old senator frank lautenberg who basically suggested this week that booker deserved a spanking because he was coveting his seat. do you agree with that? should cory booker be making moves now? >> you know, that election is next year, and all of the back and forth now is something i'm

really not focused on. >> is booker being disrespectful? >> you know, that's a question for senator lautenberg and mayor booker. >> because you're clearly not going to answer it thank you very much for joining us, senator menendez. up next our powerhouse roundtable with instant analysis of senators mccain and menendez plus will we get a democratic super bowl matchup in 2016? hillary clinton versus joe biden? and the national investigates "zero dark thirty," the film's screenwriter is here to respond. we'll be right back. we're sitting on a bunch of shale gas.

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♪ it's the >> some of our peers on the other side expressed their ambitions for your future. >> i salute you and look ahead to 2016 wishing you much success and extending to you my highest regards. >> madam secretary, at first let me thank you for your service and i wish you the best in your future endeavors mostly. [ laughter ] >> a little bit of a love fess up there. a lot of speculation over secretary clinton's future even during that hearing over benghazi. we'll get to that coming up. our roundtable is here. george will, editor in chief and publisher of "the new republic" and facebook co-founder chris hughes. democratic strategist donna brazile, arizona republican

congressman david schweikert and the host of npr's "morning edition," steve inskeep. welcome, everyone. i want to start with you, george will, on what you've just heard john mccain talking about saying i'm going to give you some straight talk, a path to citizenship has to be included in this. >> it does and i'll tell you why. the interesting thing, martha, is that this debate is coming to a rolling boil and a moment when for almost two years now net immigration from the south of the united states is approximately zero. we sort of solved the problem. you want to stop immigration, have a huge recession. that will take care of it. second, what no one can say has evolved in the process but the rest say the 11 million undocumented immigrants are not going home. the american people would not tolerate the police necessary to extract from our community a significant portion of them have been here ten years or more. 5 million have had children. those 5 million children are american citizens. i did the arithmetic. in order to deport 11 million people would require a line of

buses bumper to bumper from san diego to alaska. it's not going to happen. therefore, the question is, how do you get to citizenship? >> congressman schweikert, i have a feeling you have something to say on this. >> well, and actually being from one of those border states. >> arizona where john mccain is from. >> senator mccain touched on this. if you go to the southern part of my state i have people actually live in fear for what's going through literally the back of their house, their property. so the devil's ultimately in the details. what will happen to the populations today but what will happen to our border security for those of us border states. what will happen in the visa system? will we have a visa advise that works that tracks those who go over state and what does the future look like? intel just puts up a $6 billion plant in my community and we're having trouble finding enough electrical engineers for them. will we move to like great britain, australia, new zealand

with a point system so we can bring in the greatest talent from around the world that will grow our economy? >> tell me if i'm wrong, congressman, it seeps a couple of years ago the question was if there was going to be reform or some kind of change. it seems to me now the question is what form it will take. when i talk with people in your party's leadership in the house which might be the biggest obstacle they're making moves and so most to prepare for this putting people on the right committees to make sure they're ready to move some legislation. >> i guess maybe having been in my state legislature 20 years ago, we were talking about it back then and a lot of it -- >> as john mccain pointed out things have changed and there was this election so this does seem to be the time. >> introduces the question of president obama's capacity to lead on this. you know, we'll see what the speech in las vegas on tuesday but i think a big structural question for his sermd term is his ability to put forth an argument that inspires the american people but also challenges a lot of people who may want to block his agenda in

congress and there's a structural question there, which i think is open. >> you know, when the president met with the congressional hispanic caucus on friday he made it very clear that the time was right to move his legislation forward and you have a bipartisan group of senators and that are working on these so-called principles, the pillars of what this comprehensive immigration reform will look like but already we've seen them. this president, strict border patrol, but the path to citizenship has been the thorn in everyone's side in terms of how do we get there? i do believe that after the speech this week and what we see on capitol hill, that this legislation might move very quickly, within the next two months. >> i just want to very quickly touch on benghazi. it's been going on for months. there have been hearings. there have been these accountability review boards. george, do you think it's over? i know jay carney this week thought the gop was obsessed with benghazi. >> no, i think the subject had

the juice one out of it by saturation journalism and probably won't go on. mrs. clinton played the standard washington court of saying i take full responsibility which means no more questions, please. we've settled responsibility and that's all that's supposed to matter and then you say she was very 1.4 million cables so she wasn't really responsible so it's a classic dusty answer from washington. >> steve, you being the other member of the media here, is it over? >> well, i don't know. secretary clinton raised this question, what difference does it make, the controversy that republicans are raising. it's been suggested that that may become fodder for commercials should she run for president in 2016 but it is an interesting question. in some ways a fair question. the obsession is focused most publicly over what was said in sunday talk shows. >> sunday talk shows, exactly. >> no one cares what's said on sunday talk shows, martha. >> come on. >> there's serious questions about the lack of security before and serious questions to

answer but whether they can capture the public's imagination is another question. >> thanks. we're going to -- obsessed with talking points. there was a little session about the talking points. okay, more with our roundtable straight ahead. how should republicans regroup for obama's second term? and the president's surprising take on football. is it too violent? chris hughes shares that and more from his revealing interview with the president when we return. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. no go call. this is for real this time. we are on step seven point two one two. we have entered our two minute hold. cabin venting has been inhibited. copy that. sys two, verify and lock. command is locked. flight computer state has entered auto idyll.

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[ applause ] >> and ongoing scandal, lipgate. beyoncegate, the crisis in lipia, beyoncegazy. was there a second singer on the grassy knol? >> we'll get to that in a moment but back with the roundtable, george will, editor and publisher of the new republic and many co-founder of facebook, chris hughes, david schweikert and host of npr's "morning edition," steve inskeep. i want even though i want to talk about beyonce like right now because i just saw that. >> really important. >> we'll get to that in a moment but so many were also struck in the inaugural which seems months back, it actually just happened this week by the tone that president obama took. it was very different. in fact, speaker boehner said in

this week. this is it. >> >> over the next 20 -- >> i think we had him. he says we're expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the republican party and let me just tell you, i do believe that is their goal to just shove us into the dust bin of history, donna, is that the plan? >> well, first of all, they've done a great job and basically annihilating themselves, you, young man. but the truth of the matter is, i thought the president's speech had a perfect -- had a strategy. it was to motivate the country that we still have work to do, to seize the moment so long as we seize the moment together. it's one of the first speeches that the president has given over the last two years that i could actually read and recite and memorize and really feel inspired by.

i thought it was great to use seneca and selma and stonewall, the histories, the common thing we share as american, the struggle for freedom and equality for all people. it was a great speech. >> it was a great speech. >> he wasn't exactly reaching out to republicans or to the middle. i know you are he -- >> i appreciate you referring to me as young man but the speech i heard was actually seemed to be to excite the left side of the base. look, where is the speech from 2008? which president obama do we get? do we get the post partisan, post racial, the new embracing president? or do we get a president that's pandering to the left? >> when you read second inaugural speeches they tend to be historically a little more combative. they're the story of a president who's been in the middle of a fight for awhile so i wasn't too surprised by the tone but i thought the boehner comment was revealing the president trying to put us in the dust bin of

history. that may well be the idea for the president's ideas but it's also a clue to what boehner is thinking. i think there are republicans concerned they are on the wrong side of history which is why there is talk about changing immigration law, for example, and you have republicans pushing to find new ways to reach new constituencies and deal with the demographic problems that the republican party has. >> should he have been reaching out to the republicans, george will? >> well, the post partisan obama of 2008 gave his inaugural speech in 2009 and a couple weeks later passed the stimulus bill with no republican votes because it was simply a wish list of 30 years of democratic longing so i think it was a fairly perishable moment. to me, martha, the emblematic sentence from the speech was this "we reject the belief that america must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future." president lives in a parallel

universe where a dollar spent on "a" can be spent on "b." no choices involved. for all the so list today, we're not investing in them, we're borrowing from them because conveniently they're not here and can't object. >> well, it wasn't just president obama who changed his tone and changed his style. the republicans, it appears are trying to reboot, as well. the republicans met this week in charlotte to plot a new strategy going forward. louisiana governor bobby jindal saying the gop needed to stop being the stupid party and he also said this. >> the republican party does not need to change our principles. what we might need to change is about everything else we are doing. >> do you need to change everything you're doing? >> well, first of all, what i -- >> you're not the change guy. >> no, look, we may need to change the way we tell our story. but we seem to go through this every two years.

in 2010 it was the democrats that were having a reflecting on what has happened with the huge majority that came back and the u.s. house and the republican side. in 2006 and 2008 the republicans went through this. that's actually one of the beauties of our system is every two years there's this reflection of where we're going, what we're saying. the fact of the matter is we have a problem as a party, i believe we tell the truth, i actually believe we're much more analytic analytical. we're account apartments. sometimes being an accountant doesn't pull the heart strings. >> that's why the math has been so awful. >> we're truthful. >> what's wrong with we the people. the speeches with a declaration of the sentiments expressed by our framers. it was a narrative of our past. our present, our future. the problem with the republican party there's only a path. there's no present, there's no future. >> but i strongly disagree with you. it was a speech of how we're going to bankrupt young people. how we're going to destroy the

future. >> what program? >> i want to bring chris hughes in because, chris, you had a pretty extraordinary interview with president obama. he pointed out something that he thought was a problem with republicans. he said in the interview that "certain members of the media are hurting the republican party too." he said, "if a republican member of congress is not punished on fox fuss or by rush became law for working with a democrat on a bill of common interest then you'll see more of them doing it. i think john boehner genuinely wanted to get a deal done, but it was hard to do in part because his caucus is more conservative probably than most republican leaders are." >> this was one of the most fascinating interinterview or pieces of it. it was clear the president thinks the american people are on his side when it comes to immigration, when it comes to gun control, when it comes to fiscal issues and he thinks it's the republican party is increasingly extreme. the question is, is his capacity to lead the country and organize people behind that and whether or not he's able to do so is a

difficult one which we'll only answer in time. another piece of the interview i thought was really, really fascinating, we asked him about the new kind of politics, the obama of 2008 and where that had gone he mentioned two things that have been a real challenge, one was institutional reforms specific references the filibuster and secondly the media environment, the world in which we live where we only really listen to the people that we agree with, mnabcs or foxes of the world and there's a sense of -- >> sarah palin even said something and she did not specifically talk about fox is that we're preaching to the choir is what she said. >> amen. >> i think there's a growing sense that there's a need for a media -- for media outlets and opportunities that are not necessarily centrist but have different perspectives to make it easy for us to hear people who we disagree with and not recycling old ideas. >> there's a specific problem, as well, in that we trained ourselves or many of us

have trained ourselves to go directly past anyone's argument to their motivations and that actually is what you hear a lot on the more partisan media networks. you don't actually hear the arguments being engaged or analysis. you hear a lot say, remember, whatever he says, don't believe him. don't trust him and that's a danger. that's a difficulty. we face it when we're interviewing people on npr. why are you talking to that person on the extreme right? why are you talking to that person on the extreme left? we hear that from listeners. why are you putting on this person that makes no sense? at some point you have to get a variety of voices out there and trust people to listen to them and their arguments. >> well, being one of those people on the conservative side, i think often you get painted as you don't love and care for people. i desperately love people, but even in your article, chris, there was a section there where the president is talking about sort of stabilizing debt, well, if you actually look at what's really going on in the charts, medicare, the medicare trust

fund may be empty in 40 months. that loving and saving people dealing with really uncomfortable shall ares like that instead of living in a world of rhetorical, you know -- >> congressman, the problem in in washington, d.c. is your way or the highway. i mean the republicans won't touch taxes and the democrats -- >> we just trouched taxes. the sequestration touching the fence. at some point it's great rhetoric but not's at. >> also discretionary spending is at its lowest since 1953 and under this president we have addressed spending cuts. >> no, we have touched -- >> let's talk about -- >> discretionary, mandatory, medicare, medicaid, veterans' benefits are where the explosion is. >> aging population. >> the administration, the president has gone to the table for a grand bargain several times and seems that much of the republican caucus in the house has not accepted some of the

sacred cows that the add manager put on the table and the president talks about this in the interview in detail. >> i come back to the rule of life. a dollar spent on "a," cannot be spent on "b." why discretion hear spending is so low because nondiscretionary spend something crowding out the marine corps, scientific -- we'll be in an assisted living home with an army. >> you've given me the perfect segue with army and marines to talk about what happened this week lifting the ban on women in combat. there were all sorts of headlines this week. lauding what happened, supporting what happened rather openly, george will, you think it's a good idea. >> well, depends on how it's implemented. >> they say the physical standards will not change. >> well, that's what they always say. let me give you an example. no child left behind said we'll have 100% proficiency by 2014 in reading and math and the scary thing is we might because the only way we'll get there is by

dumbing down the standards which is actually under way. the question was -- is, will we change the physical fitness requirements so that we don't have a disparate impact? are we going to gender norm the requirements? give you an example. you've been out, martha -- >> a few time. >> in these combat zones. you're 6'4", 240-pound marine and injured and you need a marine next to you to carry you back to safety and the marine next to you is 5'4", weighs 115 pounds. it's relevant. >> okay, can i tell you something, you know, george, i've met a lot of combat medics who are women who rappel down and pick up big 6'4" marines and take them to safety. i just interviewed a woman >> that's fine and pilots, we know 152 women have been killed and iraq in afghanistan and now serving on submarines and all good for the military but there are certain anatomical facts about upper body strength and stamina. >> if i may, though.

>> very quickly here. >> anatomical facts are average. the average woman may not be fit for the woman but the average man is probably not either. the question is whether they're going to deal with individuals and there are surely individual women who could pick you or i up wounded and car i us off a battlefield. >> probably not me but there may be lots of them. i want to look way ahead to 2016. perhaps four years from now we will see joe biden who we saw this week out on the parade route. that man loves a parade. running around shaking hands with everybody like no one else. he says, he is not ruling out a run in 2016 and then there is hillary clinton, president obama and secretary clinton did a joint interview airing tonight, take a look at that. >> i just wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you because i think hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we've had. >> president obama asked me to be secretary of state and i said yes and why did i ask me and why did i say yes because we both love our country. >> donna, what was that really?

was that a little preview for this is the woman who i want to be president? >> well, i still believe it's too early to talk about 2016. we have to figure out who is going to win the super bowl next week much the truth of the matter is joe biden is a natural like bill clinton, he ahe a natural. he loves politics, reaching out but i do believe that this -- that president obama and secretary clinton have become real good, close friends. he's relied on her. her judgment. he trusts her advice. this is a relationship that i think has been forged during the four years that they've worked very closely together. >> i want to go something in the immediate future which is the super bowl and transition to football and, again, talk about something i thought was quite extraordinary in your interview, chris hughes. president obama was asked, i'm wonder if you as a fan take less pleasure in watching football knowing the impact it takes on the game's players. i'm a big football fan but i have to tell you if i had a son

i'd have to think long and hard before i let him play football. i happen to be the mother of a college football player, so i read that especially carefully. i want your reaction to that, george. >> the kinetic energy in the football program at kenyan college where your son is a football player is different than the nfl. >> yes, he seemed more concern about college football than the nfl. >> the most important letters in football are not nfl they're now cte, chronic traumatic encephalopathy which is the cumulative impact in brain damage of small unrecognized unrecorded impacts in a game that is inherently dangerous. we have parents today in this bubble wrapped childhood that we now have, parents that put when they put their child on a tricycle they put a crash helmet on them. are those parents really apt to let them play football? this is going to be a rebellion from the bottom up that is going to say, this game is just not

suited to the human body. >> steve, does it get nicer football, do you think. >> if the rules change and if there is this kind of upswell you refer to there can but there's something deeply american about the violence of this sport and this is what i mean by this. i think that there is a tendency, an american tendency to sacrifice for the team, for the group, for the military unit or even for the job. i read a book of short stories once that one of the main characters of one of the stories was an industrial worker whose face was disfigured by his work in the foundry and thought that was just part of the deal. i think that that is a deeply american tendency. i think if you put players out there, they're going to tend to want to sacrifice for the team and that's what makes it hard. >> the next time we hear a sportscaster say of a football player, prostrate on the field he got his bell rung, let's say he got a concussion. >> that would change it. >> okay, i got to quickly here, george, move on. >> all right. >> because this is so important, what i have to move on to,

beyonce, it is -- it gets george will, sports on passion. finally beyonce's anthem. does it matter whether she lip-synced or not and by the way the marine corps band wasn't playing live either. does it matter? >> look, it gives you some sense of ow absurd our politics is when there's probably been as much press on beyonce, still look great, but that's what we're talking about. >> quickly, donna, you got 15 seconds. >> she sounded wonderful. it was -- it was great. i loved it. i miss aretha, though. >> thanks to you all. a reminder chris hughes will be sticking around to answer your facebook questions for this week's web extra. coming up that controversy over "zero dark thirty" and so-called enhanced interrogation. screenwriter mark bowl and "black hawk down" author mark bowden join us next. but there are some things i've never seen before.

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can i be honest with you? i have bad news. i'm not your friend. i'm not going to help you. i'm going to break you. any questions? >> a clip from "zero dark thirty," the critically acclaimed drama about the operation to capture osama bin

laden up for five academy awards and also sparking controversy because of its depiction of so-called enhanced interrogation. we're joined now by the oscar-winning screenwriter and producer of the film, mark bowl plus best-selling author of "black hawk down," who's just written a book about the bin laden operation called "the finish." mark bowden. i have known mark boal and katheriryn bigelow since 2008 w "the hurt locker" was released and i watched you, mark, during the last year or so report out the story of "zero dark thirty," i have no idea who you talked to. but at the very beginning of the movie it says it is based on firsthand accounts of actual events. that's what's created the controversy because some say that's torture, it didn't really happen that way. did it? >> these topics are controversial. i think the controversy in a lot of ways predates the film.

and i believe that we captured the essence of what happened and so do many other people who have lived through it. >> mark bowden, i know you're a fan of the film but you've talked about a little bit and you wrote a book on the subject, as well, that perhaps it shouldn't have been told as a journalistic story. >> i think it's really an unfair burden of expectation to put on a featured film to call it journalistic. i mean journalism is very detailed, you know, you try to get down in the weeds and sort out exactly what happened and i don't think that a feature film is really the place where that happens. >> mark, you call it a reported -- >> yes, look, this had to be researched and reported by us because when we started the project there wasn't a lot of public information. there's still little information but i aetch proed the research the way i would have any article or if i was writing a book but

then there is a second stage you take that research and compile it and transform it into a screenplay. it's drama advertised so i think there's been a little bit of confusion about those two different steps and fortunately most people who go to the movies understand a movie is not the same as a documentary. >> director kathryn bigelow is on the cover of "time" magazine this week. she says she thinks it's a deeply moral movie that questions the use of force. it questions what was done in the name of finding bin laden. is that the idea. >> i think that's a fair assessment and it is -- it's a complicated movie. people want everything to be black and white on the subject matter and i think what she's talking about is it's a lot grayer and that there are deep questions that the film raises. >> the big controversy is there is a senate panel that is looking into this movie. head of the senate intelligence committee dianne feinstein along with carl levin called the film grossly inaccurate and miggs leading in the suggestion that torture helped extract information that led to the location of osama bin laden.

but i also want to play a clip of an interview i recently did with the former cia director, leon panetta. >> well, it's a great movie as far as the main subject of that movie is concerned. you know, i -- i know a lot about, you know, the kind of human effort that was involved here on all sides to deal with it. >> but was it factual in ways? >> i mean i think they did a good job kind of, you know, indicating how some of this was pieced together. >> why these different opinions? what does that tell you? >> it tells you it's a great movie because it stirs up a lot of conversation and discussion and thought. you know, there's political truth and then there's the truth. i think that the reason that the movie has been attacked is that there's a political narrative here that at its core argues that torture is unnecessary and

ineffective and that any of the excesses of the bush administration in the early years contributed nothing to the final outcome here of bin laden. the truth is that, in fact, you know, we embraced as a country very stern, cruel methods in the beginning to try to get information, and out of a lot of those interrogations emerged the name ahmed the kuwaiti, ahmed from kuwait who was thought to be a close associate of bin laden. >> chris dodd head of the motion picture association said that if there is a senate investigation it would have a chilling effect. >> my understanding is there already is an investigation and this film has been investigated by various political parties for over a year. and i do agree with that. i think that it could discourage other screenwriters or writers of any kind from making topical

movies. it could disscourge studios from releasing them. criticism is fine and i can take it but there's a difference between that and investigation and that crosses a line that hasn't been crossed really s the '40s when you talk about government investigating movies. >> what is this movie? what were you trying to do? it is in so many ways the first draft of history. >> for me it was an opportunity to shine a light on the last ten years and portray the human beings at the center of the hunt for the world's most dangerous man. >> mark? >> to the extent that it helps that story enter the popular imagination and the culture and our history, it's done a wonderful service. >> thank you both very much for joining us this morning and speaking of service and sacrifice, we now pause to honor our fellow americans who do just that. this week the pentagon released

the name of one soldier killed in afghanistan. and now we turn to a special voice this morning, someone i recognized this week from long ago, a soldier president obama turned to at the commander of chief's inaugural ball via satellite from afghanistan. >> we're honored to be able to join you. >> i sat down with him in 2005 when he was a colonel after a brutal year in iraq for the soldiers and families back home. >> our families are incredible. i mean, they've really -- they've gone through an awful lot. i told my wife i wouldn't do this. they go to memorial ceremonies, everyone. >> there were 169 memorials that

year for the first cavalry division, but abrams is now back on the front lines reconnecting this week he told me, i count my blessings every day. we were honored to have the opportunity to give the president a shoutout. that's all for us today. thanks for sharing part of your sunday with us. and check out "world news" with david muir tonight. george is back next week and we hope you will be too.